The present invention relates to systems and methods for distributing cooking oil for use in the food services industry. As will be understood, distribution may also include collection of used cooking oil.
Throughout the world, a tremendous amount of cooking oil is used in the food services industry, primarily for deep frying foodstuffs. Traditionally, cooking oil was delivered to food preparation facilities in five-gallon containers. These heavy and somewhat awkward containers were stored in the facility and then carried by hand to deep fryers for filling with oil as necessary. This task was labor intensive and resulted in unnecessary waste packaging. It also resulted in a large amount of waste oil as residual oil often remained in the packaging after filling of the fryer despite the best efforts of the cooking staff.
Once the oil had gone through its useful life and was converted to used oil, the used oil was then spilled from the fryer into a five-gallon bucket for disposal in a remote dumpster, often located in an outdoor area of the cooking facility. Again, this was a labor intensive process that had many disadvantages. For one, the oil was typically removed from the fryer at the end of the business day and often was not permitted to sufficiently cool before an employee handled the oil, so transporting the hot oil by a tired employee often resulted in injury from burns. Additionally, general spills created an unsafe working area and slip and falls became problematic. Another detriment was that the remote dumpster became a haven for rodents and other unwanted pests. Finally, as used oil became more valuable, theft of the used oil from the storage location became a large issue.
Certain cooking oil distribution companies began using automated systems to alleviate the issues associated with the conventional method of supply and recovery. One such company is Oilmatic, LLC, which uses systems generally described in its U.S. Pat. No. 6,792,983, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein. In its popular commercial system, a fresh oil tank and used oil tank are provided in food preparation facility. Typically the tanks are provided indoors for security reasons. The tanks are piped independently through separate pumps to a hand held distribution nozzle. One portion of the distribution nozzle is used to supply cooking oil to a fryer while a second portion is used to collect used cooking oil from the fryer. Operation is completely intuitive and no lifting of heavy oil is required.
In order to refill the fresh oil tank and remove used oil from the used oil tank, additional piping is provided. This piping typically terminates in a junction box located on an exterior wall of the cooking facility. A service truck may then attach piping to the junction box to fill the fresh tank and remove used oil from the used oil tank.